By Kendall Worth!
In Part#1 I provided you with the reasons why living a positive life on Income Assistance is not always easy. The current Standard Household rate at $974.00 or less, depending on circumstances, speaks volumes as to why. Even the 60% of Income Assistance Recipients who did qualify for the $300.00 increase (the first significant increase in long time) in April 2024, are saying that this $300.00 only makes a small dent in making ends meet.
So in this this current post I want to provide you with an inside look on why this $300.00 supplement is only making a dent for those who qualified.
In Part#1 I spoke to 5 different Income Assistance Recipients who did qualify for the $300.00 increase. It means they are now receiving $974.00 Plus $300.00 = $1274.00 a month. What are they doing with the extra money??
If you look back at this post, dated April 7th, 2024 ,you will see I included a grocery list with current prices. We have to consider, especially taking inflation into account, that these prices could have increased since this post was published. The grocery bill displayed in this post comes to roughly 195.00. These Income Assistance Recipients are admitting that this $300.00 increase is giving better ability to afford a grocery bill where it comes to roughly that amount. However these same Income Assistance Recipients also reported their cell phone are $53.99 a month. $40.00 continues to be the Special Needs Telephone allowance. $53.99 Subtract $40.00 = They have to pay $13.99 out of that $300.00 supplement. (So $300.00 Subtract $195.00 Subtract 13.99 = $91.01 out of that $300.00 Left)
Many others are receiving less than they should because they lost their special diet allowances, as I pointed out here and here. As this article here points out they have to use the money that is left to recover special diet allowances they have lost and as the post dated November 23rd 2024 reports, section 8.3.3 of the Employment Support and Income Assistance will not permit, reinstatement of these allowance, to this day. Also this issue around did not get touched throughout the ESIA Transformation from 2013 till 2021. So the amount they have to take out of that $91.01 left over is anywhere from $27.00 to $66.00, or any figure in-between, depending on what diet they lost.
We also have to consider that rents for many increased, within the 5% allotted Rent Cap, and a further step, toward someday becoming homeless, is never Positive.
So this concludes the inside look at how 60% of those qualified for the $300.00 Supplement are doing.
However reasons why it is so difficult to stay positive living on Income Assistance, are not limited to this one issue.
I recently interviewed 2 other Income Assistance Recipients who tell me, like many others, they are not interested in forming friendships with people who they get to know through standing in line at their Food-banks and people they sit with at the tables at their soup kitchens. These 2 did not qualify for the $300.00 Supplement and they tell me their rent is $700.00. $974.00 Subtract $700.00 = $274.00 left. They tell me that they buy 20 Hungry Man Frozen Dinners a month and they spend $119.98 a month. The Doctors of these Income Assistance Recipients wants them to stop resorting to doing this. At the same time, for these 2 individuals their regular doctors have stopped supporting the requests and expectations of their Income Assistance Caseworkers. his is why they cannot get the required Medical Documentation on their Income Assistance case files. This is also the reason why these 2 cannot get approved for the Telephone special needs allowance, because their doctor will not complete the medical note needed for this allowance.
When you look at this, there are many of the reasons why. We still have a system that promotes negativity even though over the years it has got somewhat better. We need to keep advocating for whats next in system change. This is a strong part of the reason why, even though BRAG no longer exists, as I brought up in this post the need for an organization, like BRAG, still does exists.
Things happened in the Right Direction, but we need to do better!
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Kendall Worth is an
award-winning anti-poverty activist who lives with disabilities and
tries to make ends meet on income assistance.
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